New, concise educational technology philosophy:
"Educational technology is fundamentally education, enabling students to use technology responsibly to direct their own learning."
I think this still stays true to my philosophy of educational technology and education in general.
I need to play this first video for the legislators when we are protesting the education funding cuts on the Capitol steps on March 14th.
I need to play this second video for the teachers at my school.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Blog #2 - Notes
My notes are in green.
1. educational technology (your definition developed based upon exploring the following resources and via your on research. Please note, do not just copy someone else's definition and stop there, the idea is to explore several concepts comparing and contrasting these definitions). The following are just a few listings of educational technology related organizations and a website listing of educational technology organizations worldwide.
o I really like Januszewski’s definition, “Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources,” as cited in Trends and issues in instructional design and technology, 2nd ed, by Reiser and Dempsey.
o AECT - Association for Educational Communications & Technology
· Site was a chaotic mess. Searched for “educational technology” and came up with nothing. Searched for “search” and got several hits on research, but nothing I could use. There was a general statement about improving education through technology on the “About AECT” page.
o AACE - Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education
· educational technology is a continuous process of discovery and development involving knowledge, experience, and critical thinking http://www.aace.org/conf/site/sessions/index.cfm/fuseaction/PaperDetails?presentation_id=22329
· educational technology is not a set of devices, but is in practice the relationship between devices, programs, and a learning psychology, forged by an ideology of control http://www.aace.org/conf/site/sessions/index.cfm/fuseaction/PaperDetails?presentation_id=22630
o SITE - Society for Technology & Teacher Education
· "For instance, one of the most frequent criticisms of educational technology is that it is driven more by the imperatives of the technology than by sound pedagogical reasons. Our framework argues that, though this can often be problematic, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Newer tools and technologies often offer possibilities that could not have been envisaged earlier. Teachers and educational technology scholars who understand that there is a relationship between technology and content (TCK in our framework) understand that, for example, there is no simple relationship between content and technology." http://site.aace.org/pubs/sigs/sig-Mishra-Koehler-TCR.pdf
o ASTD - American Society for Training and Development
· found something about educational technology for sales trainers, but nothing I could use
o http://www.educational-software-directory.net/organizations
· Other organizations came up, such as ISTE. I printed an article from the ISTE site to read later, but nothing useful for my definition of educational technology surfaced.
2. today's learner (based upon the information presented in these two articles and your experiences):
o http://www.taylorprograms.org/images/Marc_Prensky_Digital_natives_1.pdf and
o http://www.taylorprograms.org/images/Marc_Prensky_Digital_natives_2.pdf),
· According to the definitions for digital natives and digital immigrants, I would be a digital native. I was programming in BASIC and Turtle in 3rd grade, have difficulty reading anything without pictures or that isn’t in a bulleted list straight to the point, and use the net for everything. The teachers call me the tech whisperer.
· Legacy content: reading, writing, math, logic, writings and ideas of the past
· Future content: software, hardware, robotics, ethics, politics, sociology, languages
· Neuroplasticity is life-long but requires increased, sustained effort at higher ages. I would argue that a brain that is constantly challenged to change would change faster.
· Where’s my “sugar coating” on this assignment or this article? I still have to sit here and try to force myself to read an article that isn’t skim-friendly. This article was so written for digital immigrants! I feel like I’ve taken an hour to learn 30 seconds worth of information. Here I am having to sit and do tedious assignments that aren’t particularly challenging or intellectually stimulating. For those of you who think putting it in a video helps. Tedious is tedious in text or video. I’d take a checklist I can skim in 10 seconds as needed over a 5-minute YouTube of criteria or instructions any day. Even my productivity at school is hindered by the digital immigrant who decided that my computer should have one monitor. Multiple monitors are so much more efficient than having to minimize windows all the time!
3. the reality of education/training today, and
o constant budget cuts
o huge digital divide
o 80% of the AISD budget is salaries
o cut the salaries or number of people earning salaries, and the budget could be slashed tremendously
o Most inner city students don’t touch a computer before they are school age, and most don’t touch a computer outside of school hours after they are school age.
4. the potential impact technology can have on education/training (based upon your journal article for the journal article presentation and discussion assignment).
o Technology has the potential to misinform students if they do not know what to look for in a credible source. This occurs today with science misconceptions propagated by television and is more likely to occur with online sources as internet use by students increases.
1. educational technology (your definition developed based upon exploring the following resources and via your on research. Please note, do not just copy someone else's definition and stop there, the idea is to explore several concepts comparing and contrasting these definitions). The following are just a few listings of educational technology related organizations and a website listing of educational technology organizations worldwide.
o I really like Januszewski’s definition, “Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources,” as cited in Trends and issues in instructional design and technology, 2nd ed, by Reiser and Dempsey.
o AECT - Association for Educational Communications & Technology
· Site was a chaotic mess. Searched for “educational technology” and came up with nothing. Searched for “search” and got several hits on research, but nothing I could use. There was a general statement about improving education through technology on the “About AECT” page.
o AACE - Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education
· educational technology is a continuous process of discovery and development involving knowledge, experience, and critical thinking http://www.aace.org/conf/site/sessions/index.cfm/fuseaction/PaperDetails?presentation_id=22329
· educational technology is not a set of devices, but is in practice the relationship between devices, programs, and a learning psychology, forged by an ideology of control http://www.aace.org/conf/site/sessions/index.cfm/fuseaction/PaperDetails?presentation_id=22630
o SITE - Society for Technology & Teacher Education
· "For instance, one of the most frequent criticisms of educational technology is that it is driven more by the imperatives of the technology than by sound pedagogical reasons. Our framework argues that, though this can often be problematic, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Newer tools and technologies often offer possibilities that could not have been envisaged earlier. Teachers and educational technology scholars who understand that there is a relationship between technology and content (TCK in our framework) understand that, for example, there is no simple relationship between content and technology." http://site.aace.org/pubs/sigs/sig-Mishra-Koehler-TCR.pdf
o ASTD - American Society for Training and Development
· found something about educational technology for sales trainers, but nothing I could use
o http://www.educational-software-directory.net/organizations
· Other organizations came up, such as ISTE. I printed an article from the ISTE site to read later, but nothing useful for my definition of educational technology surfaced.
2. today's learner (based upon the information presented in these two articles and your experiences):
o http://www.taylorprograms.org/images/Marc_Prensky_Digital_natives_1.pdf and
o http://www.taylorprograms.org/images/Marc_Prensky_Digital_natives_2.pdf),
· According to the definitions for digital natives and digital immigrants, I would be a digital native. I was programming in BASIC and Turtle in 3rd grade, have difficulty reading anything without pictures or that isn’t in a bulleted list straight to the point, and use the net for everything. The teachers call me the tech whisperer.
· Legacy content: reading, writing, math, logic, writings and ideas of the past
· Future content: software, hardware, robotics, ethics, politics, sociology, languages
· Neuroplasticity is life-long but requires increased, sustained effort at higher ages. I would argue that a brain that is constantly challenged to change would change faster.
· Where’s my “sugar coating” on this assignment or this article? I still have to sit here and try to force myself to read an article that isn’t skim-friendly. This article was so written for digital immigrants! I feel like I’ve taken an hour to learn 30 seconds worth of information. Here I am having to sit and do tedious assignments that aren’t particularly challenging or intellectually stimulating. For those of you who think putting it in a video helps. Tedious is tedious in text or video. I’d take a checklist I can skim in 10 seconds as needed over a 5-minute YouTube of criteria or instructions any day. Even my productivity at school is hindered by the digital immigrant who decided that my computer should have one monitor. Multiple monitors are so much more efficient than having to minimize windows all the time!
3. the reality of education/training today, and
o constant budget cuts
o huge digital divide
o 80% of the AISD budget is salaries
o cut the salaries or number of people earning salaries, and the budget could be slashed tremendously
o Most inner city students don’t touch a computer before they are school age, and most don’t touch a computer outside of school hours after they are school age.
4. the potential impact technology can have on education/training (based upon your journal article for the journal article presentation and discussion assignment).
o Technology has the potential to misinform students if they do not know what to look for in a credible source. This occurs today with science misconceptions propagated by television and is more likely to occur with online sources as internet use by students increases.
Blog #2 - Technology Project
Educational technology is fundamentally education, enabling students to use technology responsibly to direct their own learning.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Blog #1 - Educational Technology Philosophy (my notes)
Automate vs. Informate
I feel that I am actively helping “informate” my campus. I started a pbworks.com wiki earlier this year for the school that will soon have our teacher handbook, resources for committees, school schedules, etc. All the staff are editors, and there are 4 administrators besides myself.
In this era of budget cuts, I want to make sure that knowledge isn’t lost just because personnel is lost. It looks like elementary librarians in Austin ISD will be 1 librarian to 3 elementaries, and I don’t know if I’ll be staying. I don’t want the school (and my replacement) to suffer due to the state’s funding issues.
Educational Philosophies
Constructivism – This sounds like the Montessori education method, but the district’s new “curriculum roadmap” doesn’t leave time for students self-guided education. We get bad notes from the district visitors if every class isn’t working on the same stuff (their stuff). http://www.montessori.edu/
Existentialism – I think this could be explored during Art class, but would be difficult to implement realistically elsewhere in an elementary school. http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/emerson/images/Eyeball4.gif I remember this picture from my “Intro to Philosophy” course! I couldn't reproduce it without permission, but you are more than welcome to follow the link to check it out.
Idealism – This sounds like the “Great Books” curriculum, where you read a series of great books and learn vicariously through them. I think this is a great way to supplement the curriculum for GT kiddos. There are “Great Books” for youngsters listed on the website http://www.greatbooks.org/.
Pragmatism – This is where I usually go with my teaching. When I teach math, I teach that you need math to be able to go to the grocery store, get a job, and pay taxes. When I teach science, I teach what happens when an iron skillet is washed and not seasoned with oil or what happens when warm water is thrown on a frozen windshield. When I teach library skills, I teach them so that students can check out books they can learn skills from.
I think the education system needs more of this type of curriculum, social and life skills, because more and more parents can’t or don’t seem to teach their child basic skills needed to function in the world. I am starting to realize that things I think are common sense because my parents taught them to me are not so common for my husband, who was left at home alone from 3 on up because his parents split up and his mother had to work 2 jobs. There was no one to teach him common sense, and although very “book smart”, my husband was never taught very basic things.
Realism – This is where modern education seems to be stuck. Teachers talking, students memorizing facts, some experiments, lots of tests.
Reconstructivism – Students becoming social activists does not always go over well with parents. We have already had issues with parents complaining that we tell the kiddos that smoking is bad for their health. The child goes home and asks their parent to quit. The parent gets mad at the school, the kiddo ends up in tears because they have to face the reality that their parent knows there are negative consequences to smoking and chooses to continue anyway.
I feel that I am actively helping “informate” my campus. I started a pbworks.com wiki earlier this year for the school that will soon have our teacher handbook, resources for committees, school schedules, etc. All the staff are editors, and there are 4 administrators besides myself.
In this era of budget cuts, I want to make sure that knowledge isn’t lost just because personnel is lost. It looks like elementary librarians in Austin ISD will be 1 librarian to 3 elementaries, and I don’t know if I’ll be staying. I don’t want the school (and my replacement) to suffer due to the state’s funding issues.
Educational Philosophies
Constructivism – This sounds like the Montessori education method, but the district’s new “curriculum roadmap” doesn’t leave time for students self-guided education. We get bad notes from the district visitors if every class isn’t working on the same stuff (their stuff). http://www.montessori.edu/
Existentialism – I think this could be explored during Art class, but would be difficult to implement realistically elsewhere in an elementary school. http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/emerson/images/Eyeball4.gif I remember this picture from my “Intro to Philosophy” course! I couldn't reproduce it without permission, but you are more than welcome to follow the link to check it out.
Idealism – This sounds like the “Great Books” curriculum, where you read a series of great books and learn vicariously through them. I think this is a great way to supplement the curriculum for GT kiddos. There are “Great Books” for youngsters listed on the website http://www.greatbooks.org/.
Pragmatism – This is where I usually go with my teaching. When I teach math, I teach that you need math to be able to go to the grocery store, get a job, and pay taxes. When I teach science, I teach what happens when an iron skillet is washed and not seasoned with oil or what happens when warm water is thrown on a frozen windshield. When I teach library skills, I teach them so that students can check out books they can learn skills from.
I think the education system needs more of this type of curriculum, social and life skills, because more and more parents can’t or don’t seem to teach their child basic skills needed to function in the world. I am starting to realize that things I think are common sense because my parents taught them to me are not so common for my husband, who was left at home alone from 3 on up because his parents split up and his mother had to work 2 jobs. There was no one to teach him common sense, and although very “book smart”, my husband was never taught very basic things.
Realism – This is where modern education seems to be stuck. Teachers talking, students memorizing facts, some experiments, lots of tests.
Reconstructivism – Students becoming social activists does not always go over well with parents. We have already had issues with parents complaining that we tell the kiddos that smoking is bad for their health. The child goes home and asks their parent to quit. The parent gets mad at the school, the kiddo ends up in tears because they have to face the reality that their parent knows there are negative consequences to smoking and chooses to continue anyway.
Blog #1 - Educational Technology Philosophy (blog reflection)
What makes a great teacher?
How is having a written philosophy helpful?Having my philosophy in writing will help me think about it actively, critically, and continually. Up until now, I just tried to use technology wherever I could to enhance education, but I think my philosophy is way too wordy. I think I need a slogan more than a philosophy. Growing through technology?
What are some potential uses for blogging?
I want to start a “what I’m reading” blog so my students know that I’m reading just like they are. Unfortunately, most of my students don’t have computers at home and don’t get free time on the computer at school, so it will have to be a “print” blog (bulletin board).We could also have a PTA blog or Facebook page. We just need to be cautious. We had one teacher have to resign this year already for what she posted online. She was our “Teacher of the Year” last year…
I’ve been thinking for some time of starting a “parents” forum for our school, where parents can get ideas from other parents. Perhaps the staff can also suggest support materials for parents. This may be a can of privacy worms we don’t want to open, but I’ll try to work out the kinks.
In November’s article, I would welcome videocameras in every classroom. Then we wouldn’t need visitors from downtown to come disrupt class. They could just watch from their offices and criticize us from afar. We have issues with students believing everything on the internet is true just like my mom believes every hoax e-mail she gets about everything from Obama being a Muslim born in the middle east to spiders nesting under the toilet seat. The good thing is that I think the students will listen. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell my mom about http://www.snopes.com/, she never listens!
Mr. Downes article about 5th graders blogging reflectively is wonderful. I would love for our 5th graders to be able to do that. It would be great if we could have a computer teacher who could explain AUP’s or get the students to learn how to type by 5th grade so they would be able to blog without it taking up an hour of instructional time. It would be nice if all the computers worked. That would require a campus tech. Show me the money… Then there’s the matter of the district allowing time for anything that isn’t exactly what they have listed in their curriculum roadmap (that they could compare us to constantly via the cameras).
What are my expectations for this class?
Lots of work to try and keep a job that is probably going to be cut at 10 pm on Monday night. Do I keep going? Do I go back to working in special ed? Do I go back to being a software engineer? I expect a lot of questions out of this class, and some cool new skills that I will probably be using in a different job next year.
Blog #1 - Educational Technology Philosophy (rough draft)
I’ve had many great teachers, Bertucci, Simonelli, Creider, and the common thread was that they gave me the tools necessary to not only succeed in class but to succeed in life. That is what I would like to do for my students.
I am very pragmatic in my teaching style. When I teach math, I relate it to the grocery store, budgeting, probability and games of chance, employment, and taxes. When I teach science, I relate it to iron skillets oxidizing after being washed, frosty windshields cracking under warm water, or momentum and braking distance. When I teach social studies, I relate it to geography and reading maps to go where you want to go or get “unlost”, history so as not to repeat it, or cultures and being sensitive to differences. When I teach language arts I emphasize effective communication and accurate self-expression, forms of communication such as thank-you letters, and using persuasion to accomplish a goal. When I teach library skills, I teach students what resources are available, how those resources can be used, and where to look for what they seek. I also teach social skills such as manners, when and how to apologize, and conflict resolution. Computer skills are much the same. How to use a mouse, type, create a PowerPoint, decipher the symbols of technology, these are all skills that will help students not only in class, but the real world.
I am constantly guiding teachers and students to new knowledge and methods. I am planting seeds by providing technology resources to students and teachers, and leading by example by growing in knowledge acquisition and sharing through technology. I share knowledge through the school wiki as generously as I share knowledge in my physical library. I want to empower students and teachers to succeed in the world of technology and use it independently to help themselves. The ability to read is a great equalizer because through reading a person can teach himself or herself. With technology tools, a reader has almost limitless access to knowledge and the ability to improve oneself. I still believe that technology can be a great equalizer.
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